"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
Continuing my exchange with Jerry, we moved onto the subject of Scripture itself. As you’ll see, I spent a lot of time asking questions about Jerry’s various assertions and trying to get at his underlying assumptions…
I recently devoted several posts to an exchange I had with a sedevacantist called Mike in the hope that, if you ever encounter a sedevacantist like him, you’ll have some idea as to what to expect.
Well, a little while ago I had some correspondence with a non-Catholic Christian named Jerry and I thought it would also be helpful if I posted some of that exchange here as well.
As often happens, we began our discussion by focussing on the Reformation doctrine of “Sola Scriptura” (“Scripture Alone”), the subject of my recent four-part series. As you can see from our exchange below, Jerry was a little confused as to the meaning of this Latin phrase…
Yesterday I discussed Mike’s view of the Church and the awkward predicament which comes about from his belief in the conclusion of the sacraments, the papacy, the priesthood and apostolic succession. Today I’d like to finish off by looking at Mike’s treatment of Pope Benedict (who was Pope at the time of our correspondence).
Mike asked me “Why do you think you get over 1,000.000 hits … when you Google … ‘Benedict XVI is a heretic’?”. I said that the answer to that was easy! There are a lot of people non-Catholics out there who think Benedict is a heretic! I would suggest that, since these people would not be Catholic, Mike would probably regard such people as heretics themselves!
Additionally, it’s worth knowing that such a Google query would also return pages which speak of Pope Benedict fighting against heresy. But rather than spend time explaining in more detail how Google determines its search results, I decided to use Mike’s test and apply it to himself…
When I typed into Google the phrase “Mike is a heretic” I found I got 2,540,000 results! That’s over double the number of pages! So…what does that prove? Well, I’d say it probably proves about as much as Mike’s Google query for Pope Benedict…
Yesterday I began talking about an exchange I had with Mike, a sedevacantist gentleman who asserts that the Second Vatican Council was a heretical council…
If one ascribed to Mike’s assessment of Catholicism, things really do look pretty bleak: virtually every Catholic has been excommunicated from the Church and, as a result, there are no priests or Sacraments. I was intrigued as to how Mike imagined this dire situation ever being resolved. I mean, if one held to his position, the New Covenant is in tatters! Wouldn’t Jesus need to come back to re-instute the papacy, the priesthood and the Sacraments? But this is a problem since we know that Jesus isn’t returning until His Second Coming. Here is what Mike had to say:
“I can’t tell you the nature of the Divine intercession by which the hierarchy of the Catholic Church will be restored, if this were God’s will”
Doesn’t it seem odd that Jesus would establish the Papacy, only to see it disappear from the earth with no possible way of being restored? In response to this question, Mike asked me why I trusted the Pope. I said that it’s simply because I trust Jesus Christ. He established Peter as the rock. He gave Peter the keys. If the papacy could survive Pope Alexander VI, I’m pretty sure it can survive Pope Benedict XVI!
“Sedevacantists” are people who believe that there is currently no Pope, that the “Chair of Peter” is currently empty. In fact, the name “sedevacantist” itself comes from the Latin phrase, “sede vacante”, which literally means “empty seat”.
Sedevacantists typically assert that there hasn’t been a valid Pope since the death of Pius XII (1958), or sometimes even since the death of Pius X (1914). They reject all the Popes which followed (John XXIII, Paul VI, John-Paul I, John-Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis) and usually accuse them of some kind of heresy, typically the heresy of Modernism.
At the end of last year I was contacted by a chap named Mike. I had been commenting on a YouTube video by Fr. Robert Barron concerning the Second Vatican Council and Mike started sending me private messages which quickly revealed his identity as a sedavacantist.
I decided to devote a few of posts here to my discussion with Mike. His emails were filled with large portions of text which he had copied and pasted from his website and there was also unfortunately some name-calling (mostly against the Church, although later against myself specifically), but fortunately within the midst of all that we actually did manage to have some real conversation. It is my hope that, in reviewing our exchange, if you ever meet someone like Mike you’ll know what sort of thing to expect…
Several times recently I’ve had people speak to me about “the wealth of the Vatican”, either implying it’s wrong for the Church to have money or just openly condemning it. It is declared that it is hypocritical and somehow contrary to the teaching of Jesus. A lot could be said on this subject, but I would just like to briefly make a few points…
I recently wrote a series of posts (Part 1| Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4) on the doctrine of Sola Scriptura and thought I’d write a quick follow-up post to address one objection I’ve recently heard…
Some Protestants draw a distinction between Sola Scriptura and Solo Scriptura. They assert that there is huge difference between the two. For example, in the book, The Shape of Sola Scriptura, the non-Catholic author Keith Mathison defines Solo Scriptura as the belief that:
“Scripture [is] not merely the only infallible authority but that it [is] the only authority altogether”
The Shape of Sola Scriptura, Keith Mathison
In contrast, he defines Sola Scriptura as the conviction that:
“Scripture [is] the sole source of revelation; that it [is] the final authoritative norm of doctrine and practice; that it [is] to be interpreted in and by the church, and that it [is] to be interpreted according to the regula fidei”
The Shape of Sola Scriptura, Keith Mathison
The difference he tries to assert in his book is that Solo Scriptura says that the Bible is the highest authority, being both inspired and infallible, but that Sola Scriptura does not declare it to be the only authority.
I would suggest that there is no principled difference between the two. I say this because they both pretty much boil down to the same thing: the locus of final interpretive authority ultimately lies with the individual Protestant.
Has the decree of his denomination or a council ever overruled his personal interpretation of Scripture?
His denomination may “suggest”, the creeds of the early Councils may “guide”, but the final interpreter of Scripture is still that individual Protestant. Unfortunately, this produces as many “final authorities” as there are Sola Scriptura Christians.
Or, put another way, if nobody is Pope, everybody is Pope.
